SPECIAL REPORT
Baltimore’s overdose crisis
Baltimore won millions to fight overdoses, but community groups may get just a fraction
Only $2 million is slated to be available to community organizations interested in applying for grants this upcoming year.
chat_bubble
More coverage
Baltimore’s unprecedented overdose crisis: 5 takeaways
Nearly 6,000 people have died over the past six years — an unparalleled number among U.S. cities.
Baltimore seniors have died at shocking rates from drug overdoses. Help is on the way.
Hundreds have died in Baltimore’s senior apartment buildings with little intervention. New efforts could stem the tide.
In the shadow of political clashes, Baltimore makes progress on overdose strategy
The Baltimore City Council’s Budget and Appropriations Committee approved more than $14 million to community organizations and city agencies to help tackle Baltimore’s overdose crisis, which in recent years had become the worst ever in a major American city.
Upset by ‘horrid conditions’ in drug treatment, Maryland lawmaker calls for more oversight
A Baltimore Democrat is pushing a new bill to improve state oversight of drug addiction treatment centers.
Ready but unable to open: New treatment providers face hurdles in Maryland
The operators of The Reprieve are among many addiction and mental health treatment providers — both prospective and established — who have said delays in the state’s bureaucratic machinery are hindering their ability to help Marylanders in the midst of an overdose crisis.
Video
The Banner and reporters from its partner newsrooms reflect on the overdose crisis
More from The Banner
PHA Healthcare client: ‘I have nowhere to go’ as company fails to pay rent
A Maryland addiction treatment program that was ordered to cease and desist counseling services has stopped paying rent on at least three properties.
Finding a good drug treatment program in Maryland is tough. We can help.
If you’re looking for treatment, there are some things you should know, according to providers and the public officials who oversee them.
Overdose deaths dropped sharply last year in Maryland, Baltimore
Overdose deaths in Maryland fell “dramatically” last year, Gov. Wes Moore announced Tuesday.
Mayor, councilman at odds again over Baltimore’s opioid strategy
What Mark Conway says is groundbreaking and lifesaving, the mayor’s office says is irresponsible and simplistic.
PHA Healthcare owner says treatment services have ended
The owner of PHA Healthcare said he has ended its treatment services, but clients are still living in the addiction treatment provider’s housing.
PHA Healthcare says it will still house patients after state order to stop addiction treatment
PHA Healthcare has told some patients that they can continue to reside in its housing, according to Banner interviews with current clients.
PHA Healthcare ordered to ‘cease and desist’ after Banner investigation
PHA Healthcare, a drug addiction treatment provider that enrolls hundreds of Medicaid patients in Maryland each year, has been ordered by the state health department to stop providing services to patients.
Maryland extends pause on some new addiction, mental health programs to tackle Medicaid fraud
The moratorium, first announced in June, followed explosive growth of new providers, some of whom were described by officials as unscrupulous.
New Year’s Day is usually a celebration. In Baltimore, it’s the deadliest day for overdoses.
New Year’s Day has been the deadliest day of the year for overdoses, a Banner analysis of a decade of autopsy data found.
More than 180 people seek to guide how Baltimore will spend its opioid millions
The Restitution Advisory Board will help guide the city as it spends the more than $650 million it won from pharmaceutical companies accused of inundating the Baltimore area with millions of legal opioid painkillers.
Banner analysis: Inequality central to Baltimore’s unprecedented overdose crisis
Baltimore’s unprecedented overdose crisis has not been suffered equally. Neighborhoods with the highest overdose rates were often the same ones with the highest rates of poverty, a Banner analysis found.
These kids have never done drugs. They’re still being treated for addiction.
Opioids have devastated not just individuals in the rural Cecil County, but impacted children so heavily that officials are now treating addiction as a family affair.
Why few communities chose Baltimore’s high-risk, high-reward opioid legal strategy
Baltimore joined that exclusive group last month, launching a trial against the drug distributors McKesson and AmerisourceBergen that has been six years in the making.
Young children are dying in Baltimore’s unprecedented overdose crisis
The smallest and least suspecting victims of Baltimore’s opioid epidemic are young children. Since 2020, 15 young children have died of overdose.
‘We are very familiar with death’: One man’s overdose exemplifies Baltimore’s crisis
A man’s death is one of 988 overdoses that exemplifies the cross section of ages, races, ethnicities and genders affected by Baltimore’s overdose crisis.
An unprecedented epidemic: This is where people die of overdoses in Baltimore
A yearlong investigation recently published by The Baltimore Banner and The New York Times revealed an unprecedented overdose crisis gripping Baltimore.
Flush with cash from opioid settlements, Scott reveals Baltimore’s overdose playbook
Mayor Brandon Scott laid the groundwork for the city to begin spending money, with designs on slowing the death toll in a city where in recent years an average of three people have died from overdoses every day.
Baltimore reaches second opioid settlement with CVS on the eve of trial
The settlement brings the city’s total recoveries to $90 million.
A councilman wanted to hold a hearing about overdoses. He got shut down.
A hearing to examine Baltimore’s opioid overdose crisis was abruptly canceled Wednesday morning as a dispute between Mayor Brandon Scott and the City Council member who’d called the meeting boiled over and became public.
$20M to pay lawyers: Where money from Baltimore’s opioid settlement will go
Questions abound about how the money will be used to combat overdoses.
Commentary: Here are solutions for Baltimore’s overdose crisis
City leaders, health care providers and law enforcement can work together to provide treatment, prevention and other strategies to confront Baltimore’s drug overdose crisis, directors of health and public innovation efforts at Johns Hopkins University say.
Letter: Something needs to be done about Baltimore’s overdose crisis immediately
Craig Lippens, president of the Maryland Addiction Directors Council, said treatment is key to addressing Baltimore’s opioid crisis but too many obstacles persist to offer more options.
Strangers making small talk bonded over connection to overdose victim
One of the last people to see Devon Wellington alive, before he overdosed in 2021, has developed a relationship with the man’s mother. She taught him how to use Narcan, and they recently attended a street renaming event together.
Council will hold four hearings examining city’s response to overdoses
The Baltimore City Council will hold at least four oversight hearings examining the city’s response to its unprecedented overdose epidemic.
Seniors in Baltimore are being devastated by drugs: 5 takeaways
The city has become the U.S. overdose capital, and older Black men are dying at higher rates than anyone else.
City Council to examine city’s overdose response after Banner/Times report
Councilman Mark Conway plans to introduce legislation on Monday to convene a hearing in late June.
How to get naloxone — and how to use it
Naloxone is a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose.
Baltimore planning an opioid office, public database of overdose deaths
City administrator Faith Leach said Baltimore officials have been working to expand services for people addicted to opioids, and hope to do so using potential settlement money from an ongoing lawsuit against opioid manufacturers.
Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, Baltimore’s top health official, to leave job next month
Deputy chief of staff J.D. Merrill will serve as Dzirasa’s interim replacement.
‘I love you in the sky, daddy’: Stories from Baltimore’s overdose crisis
Unprecedented overdose rates from fentanyl and other drugs have left signs of loss across the city.
About this project
The reporters examined Baltimore’s response to rising overdose deaths as part of The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship.
Reporting by Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme and Jessica Gallagher. Additional reporting by Cadence Quaranta, Emily Sullivan and Adam Willis, and Cheryl Phillips and Eric Sagara of Big Local News. Additional research by Susan C. Beachy and Kirsten Noyes.
Photography and photo layout by Jessica Gallagher and Ariel Zambelich. Design, video and web production for The Baltimore Banner by Ryan Little, Emma Patti and Zuri Berry. Audience, social and reader engagement by T.J. Ortenzi, Stokely Baksh and Krishna Sharma. Video and web production for The New York Times by Leo Dominguez, Rebecca Suner and Claire Hogan. Graphics by Molly Cook Escobar, Scott Reinhard and Nick Thieme.
Editing by The New York Times, Kimi Yoshino, Richard Martin, Ryan Little and Emma Patti.